Read Seven Veils of Seth for Free Online Page B

sparks transforming it from an entryway that was flooded with darkness into a corridor that glowed with a vision.
    This effort drained him. His body did not merely burn with fever; he also felt empty, and this emptiness made him feel sad. He had tried repeatedly to renounce the whole business and put an end to this quest for inspiration, asking, “Why do I need prophetic vision? What’s the use of prophesying for a tribe that will eventually learn what is to come anyway? What’s the use of our discovery of secrets of the Unknown, if we cannot circumvent what the Unknown’s secrets bring us, whether for good or ill?”
    He decided to give it all up, but people would not let him choose for himself or abandon this calling. An aged woman, almost one hundred years old, seized his hand to teach him a lesson the day he refused to consult the Unknown or to provide her with information concerning her three sons, who had left on a business trip to the forest lands years before and had not returned. When he told her that he had resigned, she shook her head in astonishment. Then, grasping his wrist, she asked him to step closer. She laughed scornfully at him and asked, “Do I hear right? Do you want to resign? Does a mother ever resign from nursing her infant? Does a bird resign from feeding its fledglings in the nest? Does the shepherd resign from caring for his flock? Do warriors resign from defending the tribes’ homelands? Does the sky resign from releasing rain for the earth?” She was silent for a moment – although she never released his wrist from the grip of her twig-like fingers – and then added as she gazed across the empty desert, “Don’t you understand that your resignation will turn the desert upside down? Don’t you know that prophetic vision is the diviner’s destiny and that prophesying is a duty and a debt for him? Don’t you know, son, that you did not choose your prophetic vision; it chose you? Don’t you know I will die tonight unless you promise to bring me news of my sons tomorrow? Don’t you know I live solely on the hope of seeing them again before I depart? Have you understood now that prophesying is not entertainment but hope?”
    Then she released his hand. In her sad, weak eyes, he saw moisture building: tears. So he slipped away from her tent and hastened to the wastelands, to solitude, to his destiny. He rushed to fulfill his destiny so he could bring the aged lady her treasure – her family – because had he never done that again, mothers would not have nursed their infants, shepherds would not have cared for their herds, men would not have drawn their swords to protect their homelands, and the sky would no longer have given rain to the earth. The Law would have been shaken, and the world would have been convulsed and turned upside down.
    He returned to the vast expanses of his destiny to learn that whenever a sacred passageway is unyielding, the explanation is that fever does not purify unless it burns the patient, that it does not give birth to a substance until it annihilates an existence, and that it does not revive a spirit until it slays a body.
    He bore his destiny in his heart and wrestled with the spirit world until eventually times grew harsh. The desert suffered a lengthy drought, and the tribe was forced to split up, heading for different oases. Along with a few others, he had settled in this one, bearing sorrow in his mind and the burden of prophecy in his heart.

PART I Section 3: Questioning

1 Edahi
Roused after sunrise, he discovered a specter squatting nearby and staring inquisitively at him. He traded stare for stare, but the ghost did not shift position or say a word. So he asked, “Who are you?”
    A cryptic smile flashed through the man’s eyes before he answered, “Is this the way to greet a guest?”
    Hoisting himself up on his elbows, he gazed at the flood of light washing the brows